Mount Cook experience

Despite many hours fishing, and Bruce’s best endeavours, no salmon were caught this time, and we decided not to waste any more time trying. We made a quick trip to the Salmon Farm shop, and another into Twizel to fill our water tank etc. and then we were on our way again.

I had told Bruce that if the fog lifted, I would like to go back to Mt Cook. I never cease to be awed by it’s majesty. As we were nearing Lake Pupuke, the fog was starting to lift, but it was still very hazy.

We made the quick decision to take our chances anyway on the fog disappearing by the time we drove to the Mt Cook reserve. Sure enough, that is what happened. There were lots of people around though and wherever we went for a walk we had to distance ourselves from tourists -some of whom have no idea of personal space.

We drove down to the lower reserve at the base of the Kea track, and walked up to the memorial spire for the victims of an avalanche. Again, a surprising number of people from all races and all ages were doing this walk. I wondered though, how many of those walkers thought about the people have lost their lives on such a beautiful mountain.

We were then going to head towards Tekapo when Bruce made a surprising turn off towards the little Mt Cook airfield. He thought he would take a chance on there being a helicopter flight up into the mountains, and this time we were lucky. This was the 4th time we had tried, and in the end, it was a brilliant afternoon for it. The forecast for the next day or so is for rain, and we were also running out of time in this area.

While we were waiting for take off time, we were treated to this amazing view out the window.

The flight itself was amazing. We could almost touch the mountains we were flying next to. We could see all faces of Mt Cook at different times during the flight, the beginning of the Fox Glacier, the Murchison and Tasman glaciers, and their lakes. Normally this trip lands on the beginning of a glacier, but it was too windy to do that today, so we landed on a mountain top instead. We trudged up the icy, slippery snow, and stood there, breathless in wonder, watching the sun set against Mt Cook.